All In
by siss7
Summary: One shot- Looking down the barrel at forty, it was Lorelai's time to live out another dream.


A/n Something was rattling around in my head. Enjoy. I hope. There's some angst. This idea came from the thought of what scenario would I except Luke and Lorelai not being together in the reboot. This is what I came up with.

They tried for almost a year and failed, again . After Rory got on the bus to follow Obama, Luke and Lorelai gave "a middle" another try. She found she was unreasonable angry with him for not fighting for her when he had the chance. It was to much history and not enough forgiveness.

Luke asked her to marry him in the middle of an argument and Lorelai turned him down.

"No one is to blame Luke," Lorelai told him tearfully when it ended for the last time. "Love is simply not enough."

Its what she told him, but she hardly believed it herself.

Then the chance came from Mike Armstrong. He didn't want to buy the inn and she didn't want to sell it, but the opportunity to consult was enticing. Lorelai had to much of her own blood sweat and tears into The Dragonfly to sell.

Looking down the barrel at forty, it was Lorelai's time to live out another dream. She gave up hope of "a middle" with more children. So she hired an executive manager for The Dragonfly and became a consultant for the Durham group.

Lorelai had no reason not to do it. She raised her daughter and sent her off into he world. Rory was living her dream. She loved her job following Obama on the campaign trail. Rory reconnected with Stars Hollow's own former hoodlum, Jess Mariano when the campaign bus stopped in Philadelphia.

For six years Lorelai was in and out of Stars Hollow, she traveled the world, she consulted, she saw the openings of billion dollar Inns and resorts, she rubbed elbows with Bono in the south of France and she had short lived affairs with foreign men.

She still owned her home in Stars Hollow. She would never give up that house. Lorelai still came home for holidays and birthdays and was still an active member in the town. She just wasn't home as often.

She even forged a somewhat tenuous friendship with Luke, despite their history. It was mostly for her daughter and the former hoodlum. The two bookworms insisted on being madly in love with each other and a truce between Luke and Lorelai was asking very little.

When Rory took the job at the New York Times, Lorelai flew in from Shanghai to celebrate and help her move into a tine closet apartment. When the former hoodlum proposed marriage to Rory, Lorelai flew in from Panama to help plan the wedding and take her only daughter wedding dress shopping.

The wedding was a Stars Hollow affair not to be forgotten. The bride and groom's feet didn't touch the ground the entire night. A year later when their little bookworm was born, Nana Lorelai held her daughters hand as Jack Holden Mariano made his way into the world on February 2 2014. Luke passed out the cigars.

Much to his fathers chagrin, it was Ayn Rand's birthday. Little Jack Holden was the mirror image of his father with his mothers blue eyes. Jess made sure his son had a matching leather jacket.

Being a Nana gave Lorelai no end of happiness and she decided to cut her traveling back. Lorelai suddenly being around more upset the Executive Manager of the Dragon Fly Inn, who promptly quit. Lorelai now found herself without a replacement for when she traveled and decided to give up her consultation job and returned to the Dragon Fly Inn full time, thus securing Lorelai Gilmores return to Stars Hollow full time in the summer of 2014.

Six weeks later, Liz Danes had a stroke that left her permanently paralyzed on her left side. Rory and Jess decided to move so they could help with her care.

The former hoodlum was an award winning, international best selling author and sometimes editor. He could work wherever and whenever he pleased. Rory commuted to New York for the first two months, but it caused problems for the couple. So Rory chose to take a job at a smaller paper in Connecticut to be closer to her family.

That fall Jess published another book and was set to go on an eight-week book tour around the world. So Rory called her friend Dr. Paris McMaster for help screen nannies while her husband was gone. In the end though, the only person Dr. McMaster approved was Nana Lorelai and Uncle Luke. Between the two of them, they would juggle the adorable offspring of Rory and Jess.

Eight weeks could not come and go fast enough. If it could go wrong, it did. They fought the entire time. Luke ranted about jam hands. They bickered about when to feed the baby, when to change the baby, when the baby should sleep and the appropriate explanation for an infant hiding Babette's miniature lawn gnome.

"How does that even happen?" Lorelai asked when the gnome was found in the babies crib. "He just learned how to walk."

"He is his fathers son," Rory guessed. "He screamed at the swan swimming in the lake by Larson's dock the other day.

To anyone who witnessed the show, they would say they were an old married couple. Until the day before Jess came home, in the middle of an argument, Luke stopped and simple said, "I love you." Lorelai turned around and walked out the door.

This man still frustrated her. He still left her completely confused and took her breath away. After all this time, she still felt something for him and it wasn't contempt.

Crap.

Either way, Nana Lorelai greeted the former hoodlum at the airport, handed him the precious baby and promptly informed him, he was never to leave the country again. Nor was Paris going to be in charge of picking a nanny. She didn't speak to Luke, truce be damned.

The Christmas of 2014 was a quiet one. Rory and her family were stuck between Luke and Lorelai. Having had enough of the games, Jess said to his mother in law, "He never stopped loving you." Lorelai had nothing to say for once in her life.

Three days after Christmas, Richard Gilmore had a fatal heart attack. He died in his wife's' arms waiting for the paramedics to take him to the hospital.

There was a funeral to plan.

There was a mother to comfort.

There was a daughter that needed her mother to be strong.

A baby with cherub cheeks and bright blue eyes that needed snuggles from Nana Lorelai.

When Lorelai was alone, for the first time, she felt empty. No one was her shoulder to cry on. No was strong for her. No one was there to hold her.

So she went to the place that always was able to comfort her: Luke's Diner.

He took one look at her and scooped her up in his arms. He wiped away her tears.

"I'm all in," she finally choked out.

"I was never out," Luke said and captured her lips.

* * *

The following year was hard on everyone. Lorelai missed her father very much. Her mother had to learn to live without the man she loved for nearly fifty years. Rory learned to balance being a wife and a mother with the career she dreamed about and mourn the loss of her grandmother.

Luke was Lorelai's refuge. He was her shoulder. He was her strong pillar.

When Luke asked her to marry him, Lorelai Gilmore didn't hesitate this time. She was a blushing bride at 47. The ceremony was small. Consisting of Rory, the former hoodlum and their adorable offspring, Emily Gilmore, and lastly TJ and Liz.

After the wedding, while Luke loaded the car for the honeymoon, Rory and her mom relaxed on the porch swing as the little boy played near by.

Rory turned to Lorelai, "Are you happy mom?"

"Yea kid I am."

"Mom I'm Pregnant again," Rory informed her mother. "We want a girl."

"We need another Lorelai."


End file.
